Go, burn these poisonous weeds in yon blue fire,
These screech-owl's feathers and this prickling briar,
This cypress gathered at a dead man's grave,
That all thy fears and cares an end may have.

Then come, you Fairies! dance with me a round!
Melt her hard heart with your melodious sound!
In vain are all the charms I can devise:
She hath an art to break them with her eyes.

THERE IS NONE, O, NONE BUT YOU.
From Campion's Two Books of Airs.

THERE is none, O none but you,
That from me estrange your sight,

Whom mine eyes affect to view
Or chained ears hear with delight.
Other beauties others move,

In you I all graces find;

Such is the effect of Love,

To make them happy that are kind.

Women in frail beauty trust,

Only seem you fair to me;

Yet prove truly kind and just,
For that may not dissembled be.

Sweet, afford me then your sight,

That, surveying all your looks,

Endless volumes I may write

And fill the world with envied books:

Which when after-ages view,

All shall wonder and despair,

Woman to find man so true,

Or man a woman half so fair.

FOLLOW YOUR SAINT!

From Campion and Rosseter's Book of Airs, 1601.

FOLLOW your saint, follow with accents sweet!

Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet!

There, wrapped in cloud of sorrow, pity move,
And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love:

But, if she scorns my never-ceasing pain,

Then burst with sighing in her sight and ne'er return again.

All that I sang still to her praise did tend,

Still she was first, still she my songs did end,

Yet she my love and music both doth fly,

The music that her echo is and beauty's sympathy:

Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight!

It shall suffice that they were breathed and died for her delight.

ROSE-CHEEKED LAURA.

From Campion's Observations on the Art of English Poesy, 1602.

ROSE-CHEEKED Laura, come;

Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty's

Silent music, either other

Sweetly gracing.

Lovely forms do flow

From concent divinely framed;

Heaven is music, and thy beauty's

Birth is heavenly.

These dull notes we sing

Discords need for helps to grace them,

Only beauty purely loving

Knows only discord;

But still moves delight,

Like clear springs renewed by flowing,
Ever perfect, ever in them-

selves eternal.

WILLIAM BROWNE.

(1590?-1645?.)

Browne's Poems are published in the Roxburghe Library, edited by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt, and in the Muses' Library, edited by Mr. Gordon Goodwin, 1894.

CARPE DIEM.

From Britannia's Pastorals, Book i., 1613.

ENTLE nymphs, be not refusing,

GENT

Love's neglect is time's abusing,
They and beauty are but lent you,

Take the one and keep the other:
Love keeps fresh what age doth smother:
Beauty gone you will repent you.

'T will be said when ye have proved,
Never swains more truly loved:
O then fly all nice behaviour.
Pity fain would, as her duty,
Be attending still on beauty,
Let her not be out of favour.

THE SONG IN THE WOOD.

From the Inner Temple Masque, 1614-15.

WHAT sing the sweet birds in each grove?

Nought but love.

What sound our echoes day and night?

(M 349)

All delight.

What doth each wind breathe as it fleets?

Endless sweets.

Chorus.

Is there a place on earth this Isle excels,
Or any nymphs more happy live than we?
When all our songs, our sounds, and breathings be,
That here all love, delight, and sweetness dwells.

THE SIREN'S SONG.

From the Inner Temple Masque.

STEER hither, steer your wingèd pines,

All beaten mariners,
Here lie Love's undiscovered mines,

A prey to passengers;

Perfumes far sweeter than the best

Which make the Phoenix' urn and nest.
Fear not your ships,

Nor any to oppose you save our lips,
But come on shore,

Where no joy dies till love hath gotten more.

For swelling waves our panting breasts,
Where never storms arise,
Exchange; and be awhile our guests:

For stars gaze on our eyes.

The compass love shall hourly sing,
And as he goes about the ring,

We will not miss

To tell each point he nameth with a kiss..

Chorus.

Then come on shore,

Where no joy dies till love hath gotten more.

LOVE'S REASONS.

From Lansdowne MS. 777, first printed 1815.

FOR her gait if she be walking,

Be she sitting I desire her

For her state's sake, and admire her
For her wit if she be talking.

Gait and state and wit approve her;
For which all and each I love her.

Be she sullen, I commend her
For a modest. Be she merry,

For a kind one her prefer I.
Briefly everything doth lend her

So much grace and so approve her,
That for everything I love her.

EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE

From Lansdowne MS. 777, first published in Osborne's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, 1658; often, but erroneously, ascribed to Ben Jonson.

UNDERNEATH this sable hearse,

Lies the subject of all verse,
SIDNEY'S sister, PEMBROKE's mother;
Death! ere thou hast slain another,
Fair and learn'd, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee

EPITAPH.

From Lansdowne MS. 777

[AY! be thou never graced with birds that sing,

MAY!

Nor Flora's pride!

In thee all flowers and roses spring;

Mine only died.